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Perhaps expecting the unexpected makes more sense than expecting the expected these days.
Confused? So am I.
The St. Louis Blues came to Nashville at a seemingly significant disadvantage. They were not well rested on home ice controlling the matchups. After skating for 64 minutes against Vancouver, then boarding a plane late at night to play the next day most observers would say on Saturday their chances of winning are slim.
Funny thing is, they jumped to the same conclusions on Friday with the Blues being on the opposite end of the estimation.
It happened again.
St. Louis rode their thoroughbreds, primarly Alexander Steen and Jaroslav Halak, to 6-1 victory.
Steen scored the lone first period goal, his 9th of the season, on the power play. TJ Oshie netted his second with a point shot deflection just before the halfway mark of the middle set. Jaden Schwartz effectively put the game out of reach with his second of the season.
Nashville had their chances to score and just didn't finish them. The only forward who could was Nick Spaling. His early third period short handed goal gave the home team life and cut the lead down to two goals. Short lived was the renewed sense of hope.
Steen banked home his league leading 10th goal a few minutes later and within the next four Derek Roy lasered home a wicked shot off the rush. The last tally came with around seven minutes left as defenseman Alex Pietrangelo rifled home a long distance shot on the final man advantage of the game. It was his first of the season.
Halak apparently got all the rough edges smoothed out Friday as he looked sharp against the Preds. He stopped 22 of 23 shots including all 16 he faced through two periods. Spaling's goal came on Nashville's first attempt on net of the third.
Carter Hutton was not as solid as he has been to date. He yielded five goals on 26 shots before Magnus Hellberg took over.
Quick Hits
-- Blues forward Magnus Paajarvi left early in the game and did not return due to an upper body injury. Head coach Ken Hitchcock described the injury as serious after the game. At the 2:46 mark of the first period Ryan Ellis was credited with a hit on the Swede as was
Victor Bartley some eight minutes later. Best bet is that Barley did the damage. Paajarvi did take some shifts following the hit so the whole situation seems a bit odd for the time being.
-- Hitch also said that Chris Stewart suffered a potentially serious injury as well. Antagonist Patric Hornqvist executed a bit of risky interference on the big winger in the corner. As a result Stewart ended up sliding back first to the boards. He spent a few minutes down on the ice before heading to the bench and eventually returning to the ice. It didn't take long to track down his attacker and seek retribution via the code. Hornqvist would have none of it. Stewart earned 14 minutes of penalties for his actions and wouldn't return.
-- With Max Lapierre out for another game due to suspension and the injuries upfront the Blues may be forced to recall one or two from Chicago of the AHL for their next game on Tuesday versus Winnipeg at home. Given the outcome of training camp its likely that Chris Porter and Dmitrij jaskin would be given priority.
The Blues have three days off after Tuesday. Adam Cracknell is healthy and Lapierre is close to returning so only one may be recalled. The Wolves play Sunday and are off till Friday, November 1st and only seven combined games have been played by the two likely candidates. There would be little harm in sending them both south for some extra reps with the big club.
The only major risk would be losing Porter (or Cracknell for the sake of argument) to waivers returning to Chicago when Paajarvi and Stewart are ready to go.
-- Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester were on point. They shut down key offensive threats like Colin Wilson, Hornqvist, Seth Jones, and Shea Weber. The vast majority of that pairings 5 on 5 time on ice was spent against them and they dominated them. Both had 24 Corsi For a piece and combined for only 24 Corsi Against and started in the offensive zone well less than 50% of the time. Team Canada just has to be drooling over those two dictating play on the larger surface come Olympics time.
-- The Backes line got a healthy diet of the Seth Jones and Shea Weber pair and took them to task. More than 10 minutes of five on five time featured that matchup with the weight heavily tilted in the Predators top pairings favor. Over 70% of their zone starts were in the offensive end yet they produced no goals while Backes' line was responsible for two and started in the offensive zone less than 25% of the time.
Performances like these are putting the line in the same territory as some of the most elite lines in the league. Not quite there yet from an advanced stats perspectve or in winning in the post season angle, but just a hair below the productivity of the following lines: Sedins/Kesler, Crosby's, Thornton's, and Krejci's.
-- Its astounding how well the Blues travel in Nashville. A Let's Go Blues chant was easily audible on TV and there was plenty of cheering on goals without goal horns.
Stange But True Stats
The Blues now have two of the leagues top 20 goal scorers in Steen (T-1st with10) and Backes (T-12th with six. Steen is also tied for third in league scoring with 15 points.
Pietrangelo (1g, 7a, 10th) and Bouwmeester (7a, 21st) are in the top 25 of defensive scoring. They've also played fewer games than all those ahead of them except for Mark Giordano.
With 14 points in the bag out of 18 possible the Blues are motoring along at a healthy 77.7% clip. An impressive feat considering how hard they're leaning on five specific skaters and one goalie so far.
Sitting atop the league's power play chart are the Blues at 30.3%. Crazy to think that they've accomplished that conversation rate while earning the third fewest man advantage opportunities (33).
In the third period the Blues have allowed on six goals against in nine games. Second lowest total overall.
Must See Replay
Steen gets a lot of love and admiration for his efforts, and rightfully so, but Schwartz goal was too pretty not to put on display.
Thanks for reading!
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